Video: First Gurkha to Die in Afghanistan

A new video posted yesterday features footage from a battle in which the first Gurkha to die in Afghanistan was killed.  Gurkha's are Nepalese soldiers recruited to serve with the British army which they've done since 1815, fighting throughout all the major wars including Iraq and Afghanistan.  The UK Guardian provided this account of the battle in which the fallen Gurkha, 28-year-old Yubraj Rai, was killed:

Braving withering fire from fortified Taliban positions, men from the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, located the body of Rifleman Yubraj Rai and then carried it more than 100m across open ground.

In previous years the fighting in Helmand has subsided in November, but the latest dispatches from the region reveal concerted resistance from the Taliban forces. Rai, who had been in Afghanistan for only two weeks, was shot during an operation to clear the southern districts of Musa Qala after intelligence revealed that the Taliban had consolidated their forces almost a year after British troops seized control of the town.

During the operation earlier this month, a Gurkha platoon was ambushed on a stretch of open ground. Amid the chaos, Rai was hit almost immediately.

Colleagues initially believed that the 28-year-old was just diving for cover. But after he realised Rai had been hit, Lieutenant Oli Cochrane began planning to rescue his body, but suddenly lost all radio contact as a bullet hit his radio. Further rounds then pierced his rucksack.

As Taliban fighters found their range, Captain Gajendera Angdembe, Rifleman Dhan Gurung and Rifleman Manju Gurung ran 100m across open ground to retrieve Rai's body.

Here's the video via ITN:


A second Gurkha was later killed in Afghanistan when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.